Got a 3TB Seagate external HDD last month and put over 1TB on it already and only now thought about protecting the data in case of theft. What's my best option at this point? Do I use something like Truecrypt and it will take quite a bit of time encrypting what's already on there? I think that was my experience a few years ago when I first tried it, haven't since. Are there other options like passwording it and it protects the entire contents? I need something that will protect it from simple google searches for hacking a protected hdd. At the same time it needs to be easily accessed once in a while - I'm guessing it just asks for a password everytime it's plugged in? Any other [simple] software recommendations welcome.

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ugh, truecrypt is saying it will run 2 days to encrypt my drive. I'm not sure if that means it's doing the entire 3TB or just the actual data I have on there (something over 1TB).

- I thought I read on their site that it doesn't encrypt existing files but creates a volume which is encrypted and I move files over? What is it actually doing?

- Is it bad for an external hard drive to run constantly for 2 days doing this encryption? There's no way to access the data on it until this is done. Other option is to format the whole thing and start over I think.

ugh, truecrypt is saying it will run 2 days to encrypt my drive. I'm not sure if that means it's doing the entire 3TB or just the actual data I have on there (something over 1TB).

- I thought I read on their site that it doesn't encrypt existing files but creates a volume which is encrypted and I move files over? What is it actually doing?

- Is it bad for an external hard drive to run constantly for 2 days doing this encryption? There's no way to access the data on it until this is done. Other option is to format the whole thing and start over I think.